Perfect fit

I was looking for an infant size jersey for the German National Soccer team the other day but was not able to find one. Instead, I bumped into these online. Some things are too perfect!!

Meet Liam Christof

Today was the much anticipated 20 week ultrasound. This is an important one because it's the first one where the baby is more proportionate and it's possible to find out the sex. We were relieved to hear that all of the measurements are in the normal range.

Darlene, our very good friend and nurse/midwife said this was a boy from our visit at 7 weeks. She said that when there is no morning sickness it is statistically more likely to be a boy than a girl and the heart rate has typically been in the boy range. Today confirmed her suspicions and we have a little boy!

Meet Liam Christof! The white matter is the brain. If you look at the head and imagine the face of a clock, look at 5:00 to see the profile of his face. We think it may be the beginning of a Bunn chin.

He is already saying, 'Come on Mom and Dad! No more pictures. I'm hiding my face!'

Really crude editing job
(one day I will get real tools and not just use a touch pad)
Here's the little guy end to end

We said we were not going to share the name, but we both agreed that when we saw the images today this felt like our baby for the first time and we wanted to share the name.

We have chosen the name for a few reasons. The simplified answer is because we like it. But if you want more details, we wanted names that both native English speakers and native German speakers could pronounce. We also wanted to pick names that were significant to our family and faith.

'Liam' is an Irish name of Gaelic descent which comes from old German. It is short form of 'Uilliam' in Gaelic and 'William' from the German 'Wilhelm'. Wilhelm was Opa Janke's name and we wanted to remember him. The name means 'will, desire, helmet or protector' from the Gaelic and in Hebrew means 'my people' or 'I have a nation'.

'Christof' is To's brother's name and we wanted to name him after his Onkel Christof. In German 'Christof' means 'the Christ-bearer' or 'Christ-carrier'. Since these names are significant to our family and faith, we decided to name him Liam Christof.

We didn't expect to get 3D images today but we both agreed this really let us 'see' Liam for the first time.

We are grateful that everything appears to be normal and healthy. 20 weeks (ish) to go!

Tradition, Addition and Dead Grass

Wilhelm Janke 19 June 1911 - 19 May 2008

Last week we went to Germany for Opa's funeral. As the formal death announcement said, "After a long and fulfilling life, our beloved father, grandfather, brother-in-law, and uncle has passed away. We will never forget him." It is always sad to lose someone who is dearly loved, but we are thankful that he did not have to suffer long. It was a very busy week and we are very thankful that we were able to be there and go through everything as a family.

Work continues on the addition, although at this point we are nearly done. Tobias was painting windows in the addition today when some solicitors came to the door. He realized that he never heard the door bell or a knock on the door when he was in that room. He has know decided that room might be a good sound-proof oasis for sleep in the near future.

As many of you will know, our house had needed major landscaping work since we bought it. Since we had so much work to do inside the house, the outdoor work became second priority. We decided to take the plunge and pay a professional lawn care company to service the yard to see if we could improve the grass. Much to our surprise, the entire front yard was dead within weeks of our first treatment. Tobias called the company to follow up and figure out what was going on. The instructions he gave them were to 'kill the weeds so our summer grass would grow'. The work order was then written to say 'kill the weeds to include unwanted summer grasses'. Tobias is now negotiating how this will be fixed.

Time flies

Looks like we have lost track of some time. Can't believe we haven't updated in 2 weeks! Sorry for going quiet.

Let's see . . . we had our 16 week ultrasound. This one was an audio ultrasound (versus visual) and we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat. For what it's worth, the heart rate was between 150-157. There is an urban legend about heart rates and gender but it's like all 'predict the gender' games. . . it is accurate 50% of the time. That being said, according to the nurse/midwife we are in the boy range. (She has maintained it's a boy since day one.) We will know for sure if it's a boy or a girl sometime around 13 June when I have my 20 week ultrasound. Right now we have agreement on a girl's name but not on a boy's name. If it turns out to be a boy then we will have to get that resolved. Just an FYI - we have decided not to share the name until the baby is born so that will have to be a surprise.

Work on the addition continues. We are up to dry wall at this point. If all goes to plan the contractors should be done the end of this week and we will take over after that. We have already made the requisite IKEA run. Christof, you will be happy to know the 'IKEA effect' lives on. Tried to stick to our budget . . . but you know how it goes.

Things continue to go well with the pregnancy. The only issue I had was illness last week, but it was a good old fashioned head cold and nothing specific to the pregnancy. It's fun trying to deal with cold symptoms sans medicine. For the most part I am better and really only felt terrible about 3 days last week.

I guess that's the news for now. Love to you all!

The show(tunes) must go on!!!!

I have always admired Tobias' skill with electronics and all the work he does around the house have everything wired. But today I realized it's all self-preservation.

I was working in the kitchen and listening to the Showtunes music channel when Tobias walked in with these headphones. It was then that I realized that it was time for Tobias to watch soccer. He connected the wireless headphones to the TV in the guest room and turned on the Showtunes channel so I could listen to my music while he watched soccer. So notice what's on the TV in kitchen while I work.

And on other side of the island . . .Tobias watches his soccer free of show tunes. Only two problems with this plan, the headphones don't stop me from singing and Tobias still thinks I should be able to hear him talking when these are on . . .

Making room for baby

Construction began this week to enclose our side porch. This space will allow us to move furniture out of our study and convert that into the guest room. Then we'll have space to set up a nursery. Just so we all know that everything is right in the universe . . . yes, Tobias does have an elaborate wiring plan so that this room too will have TV, it's own sound zone, and internet. He's even getting the builders to include an extra 2"x8" in the framing to support his wall mounts. My contributions have been a vaulted ceiling (which means extra cost), constantly changing my mind about the location of the door, and painting the brick.

We have a contractor doing the work through dry wall and we will take over from there. When the room is done we hope to have a comfy space for reading and watching TV as well a very casual dining area.

We are now at 15 weeks. Second trimester feels a lot better than the first, but now it's weight gain time - - on average a pound a week. Yikes!!

Caving (or distending) to the pressure

After much pressure from family I have decided to post a picture of the 15 week tummy. Here it is. Guess it's only onward and outward from here!!!